Presidential Office Employment and Labor Secretary Choi Hyun-seok, Climate and Environment Secretary Lee Chang-heum Appointed

All Former Spokespersons... Strengthening Policy Communication

Presidential Office Employment and Labor Secretary Choi Hyun-seok and Climate and Environment Secretary Lee Chang-heum

Choi Hyun-seok, Director of Planning and Coordination at the Ministry of Employment and Labor, has been appointed as the new Employment and Labor Secretary to the President, and Lee Chang-heum, Director of Climate and Carbon Policy at the Ministry of Environment, has been appointed as the new Climate and Environment Secretary.

According to the Presidential Office on the 24th, the two new secretaries started working at the Yongsan Presidential Office from that day.

Secretary Choi passed the 39th Administrative Examination and has served in various roles at the Ministry of Employment and Labor, including Director of Labor Standards Policy at the Labor Policy Office, Standing Member of the Minimum Wage Commission, Spokesperson, and Director of Employment, Food, and Drug Policy at the Office for Government Policy Coordination. He has been the Director of Planning and Coordination since July last year. He graduated from Paichai High School in Seoul and Yonsei University with a degree in Public Administration, and earned a master's degree in Public Administration from the University of Nottingham in the UK.

Secretary Lee passed the 40th Administrative Examination and has held key positions at the Ministry of Environment, including Minister’s Secretary, Director of Environmental Industry Economy Division, Head of Policy and Public Relations Team at the Spokesperson’s Office, Spokesperson, Director of Wonju Regional Environmental Office, and Director of Policy Planning. He has been serving as Director of Climate and Carbon Policy since August last year. He is from Jeju, graduated from Kyung Hee University, and holds both master's and doctoral degrees in Political Science from the Department of International Relations at Keele University in the UK.

Both secretaries are former spokespersons with extensive work experience and are highly regarded for their policy communication skills. As President Yoon Suk-yeol enters his third year in office and strengthens communication with the public, this appointment of spokesperson-origin secretaries is interpreted as an effort to enhance policy implementation capabilities.

The predecessors, former Employment and Labor Secretary Kim Min-seok and former Climate and Environment Secretary Lee Byung-hwa, will each assume the positions of Vice Minister at the Ministry of Employment and Labor and the Ministry of Environment, respectively.